Combustible Dust Testing

Laboratory testing to quantify dust explosion and reactivity hazards

Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Gas and Vapor

Laboratory testing to quantify explosion hazards for vapor and gas mixtures

UN-DOT
Classification of hazardous materials subject to shipping and storage regulations
Hydrogen
Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen
Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Thermal Stability

Safe storage or processing requires an understanding of the possible hazards associated with sensitivity to variations in temperature

Adiabatic Calorimetry
Data demonstrate the consequences of process upsets, such as failed equipment or improper procedures, and guide mitigation strategies including Emergency Relief System (ERS) design
Reaction Calorimetry
Data yield heat and gas removal requirements to control the desired process chemistry
Battery Safety

Testing to support safe design of batteries and electrical power backup facilities particularly to satisfy UL9540a ed.4

Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Cable Testing
Evaluate electrical cables to demonstrate reliability and identify defects or degradation
Equipment Qualification (EQ)
Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions
Water Hammer
Analysis and testing to identify and prevent unwanted hydraulic pressure transients in process piping
Acoustic Vibration
Identify and eliminate potential sources of unwanted vibration in piping and structural systems
Gas & Air Intrusion
Analysis and testing to identify and prevent intrusion of gas or air in piping systems
ISO/IEC 17025:2017

Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2017 in the field of Testing

ISO 9001:2015
Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO 9001:2015
Dust Hazards Analysis
Evaluate your process to identify combustible dust hazards and perform dust explosion testing
On-Site Risk Management
On-site safety studies can help identify explosibility and chemical reaction hazards so that appropriate testing, simulations, or calculations are identified to support safe scale up
DIERS Methodology
Design emergency pressure relief systems to mitigate the consequences of unwanted chemical reactivity and account for two-phase flow using the right tools and methods
Deflagrations (Dust/Vapor/Gas)

Properly size pressure relief vents to protect your processes from dust, vapor, and gas explosions

Effluent Handling

Pressure relief sizing is just the first step and it is critical to safely handle the effluent discharge from an overpressure event

FATE™ & Facility Modeling

FATE (Facility Flow, Aerosol, Thermal, and Explosion) is a flexible, fast-running code developed and maintained by Fauske and Associates under an ASME NQA-1 compliant QA program.

Mechanical, Piping, and Electrical
Engineering and testing to support safe plant operations and develop solutions to problems in heat transfer, fluid, flow, and electric power systems
Hydrogen Safety
Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen
Thermal Hydraulics
Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions
Nuclear Safety
Our Nuclear Services Group is recognized for comprehensive evaluations to help commercial nuclear power plants operate efficiently and stay compliant
Radioactive Waste
Safety analysis to underpin decomissioning process at facilities which have produced or used radioactive nuclear materials
Adiabatic Safety Calorimeters (ARSST and VSP2)

Low thermal inertial adiabatic calorimeters specially designed to provide directly scalable data that are critical to safe process design

Other Lab Equipment and Parts for the DSC/ARC/ARSST/VSP2 Calorimeters

Products and equipment for the process safety or process development laboratory

FERST

Software for emergency relief system design to ensure safe processing of reactive chemicals, including consideration of two-phase flow and runaway chemical reactions

FATE

Facility modeling software mechanistically tracks transport of heat, gasses, vapors, and aerosols for safety analysis of multi-room facilities

Blog

Our highly experienced team keeps you up-to-date on the latest process safety developments.

Process Safety Newsletter

Stay informed with our quarterly Process Safety Newsletters sharing topical articles and practical advice.

Resources

With over 40 years of industry expertise, we have a wealth of process safety knowledge to share.

Recent Posts

Safety: It's More Than Compliance

Posted by Fauske & Associates on 02.20.18

 By Harry J. Elston, Ph.D., CIH, consultant to Fauske & Associates, LLC

There are many organizations that are compliance-driven. They think that if they are compliant with OSHA regulations then their organizations are working safely. This thinking is not necessarily true.

"Corporate compliance with regulations does not equate to corporate safety."

Don’t misunderstand me. Compliance with regulations is important, but corporate compliance with regulations does not equate to corporate safety. I know of, and have worked for, a number of organizations that have been subjected to OSHA Compliance visits with the accompanying fines and they are naturally afraid of the cost for regulatory non-compliance. Likewise, I am also aware of corporations who view regulatory fines as a “cost of doing business.”

Chemical Process Safety and MAAP Services at Fauske & Associates
 

Let me provide a non-chemical example of how compliance does not equate to safety. The RMS Titanic was fully compliant with all applicable engineering and safety regulations at the time of her construction. And yet, she now lies silent at the bottom of the ocean. Compliance did not spare over 1500 passengers from their deaths.

Here are a couple of reasons why compliance does not equal safety:

• Regulations cannot keep pace with best practices: Technology will always outpace the regulatory landscape. For a concrete example of this, OSHA has yet to incorporate “inherently safer technology” (IST) into the Process Safety Management standard (29CFR1910.119) although IST is part of a 2014 report to the Obama Administration and the following Executive Order 13650. Regulations are changed through a lengthy political process and can stagnate, while best practices can be flexibly executed at the corporate level.

• Regulations generally focus on hazard, not risk: Hazard identification is generally pretty easy: Unguarded saws are easily spotted. However, an unguarded saw that is (1) dedicated to a single process by a written administrative control and high-level operator supervision and (2) has numerous jigs hanging next to it for those processes looks just like any other unguarded saw and may incur a “serious” –level OSHA violation, even though the risk may be sufficiently managed and the process may be deemed “safe” for the operator. From a laboratory-scale chemical safety perspective, hazards associated with reactive chemicals or reactive chemistry (highly exothermic processes), though very real, are simply not addressed by the Laboratory Standard. Risk is certainly not addressed by the Laboratory Standard.

Risk is the combination of the probability of a consequence occurring and the severity of that consequence. Risk is reduced by reducing the probability of an incident and/or reducing the severity. While hazard abatement is an important part of risk reduction, it is not the only part. Since regulatory compliance is often hazard-based, other important aspects of overall risk reduction can be missed or neglected, such as incorporating work practices to reduce injury severity as a result of an incident. An example would be including polycarbonate shielding in addition to a laboratory chemical hood for reactive chemical processes in order to prevent or reduce injury in the event of a run-away reaction.

I’ve seen far too many organizations that focus on compliance are still experiencing worker injuries that are costing them thousands per year in dollars and non-production. Moving to a risk-centric safety system often results in reduced workplace injury while simultaneously obtaining regulatory compliance.

Dr. Elston is a physical chemist and a Certified Industrial Hygienist and is the Principal and senior scientist at Midwest Chemical Safety, LLC. He is a consultant with Fauske & Associates, LLC. He can be contacted at helston@midwestchemsafety.com or 217-971-6047. For more information regarding Process Safety Management or Risk assessements, please contact Kris Fauske at 620-887-5224, kfauske@fauske.com.

FAI Process Safety Newsletter

Topics: Process Safety

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